Oconto County ready to ‘go on offense’ against COVID-19

Oconto County Public Health started a waiting list for COVID-19 vaccinations on Jan. 20, and the deluge began.

“We had about 120 calls in the first hour,” Health & Human Services Director Mike Reimer told the Oconto County Board. “It backed up our voicemail system.” Reimer added that they had to ask Wayne Sleeter, technology services director, to increase the storage on the phones so they could keep up with the calls coming in.

But Reimer said local officials are happy to have the vaccine available after “playing defense” since last March. “Now we have the vaccine. It will allow our nurses to go on offense and start doing what they do.”

The county is working with Prevea Health, Bellin Health and other providers to coordinate local vaccine distribution, Reimer said.

“Our ultimate goal is to make sure anyone in Oconto County has access to the vaccine when they’re eligible,” said Deb Konitzer, Public Health Division director.

Konitzer said the latest information will be available at ocontocountycovid.info, which is updated at least once a week and daily as necessary.

Officials continue to ask people to wear masks and maintain distance as they wait for vaccine distribution.

“We don’t know how long that’s going to take,” Reimer said. “It’s going to be a number of months until we can get this under control.”

As of the board’s Jan. 21 meeting, Oconto County had recorded 4,466 positive tests for coronavirus since the first confirmed case March 27, Reimer said. Fifty of those people had died.

As late as Sunday, the state Department of Health Services was listing only 44 deaths in Oconto County, illustrating the lag between a person’s passing and certification, he said.

Reimer said he personally spent four weeks coping with the virus, “and I’m a very healthy person,” noting that many people have been hospitalized during the pandemic.

“Those folks have suffered a lot. We haven’t really talked about them, but there’s a lot of people in this county who have suffered greatly from this virus, have been hospitalized and have had many many weeks of suffering because of this,” he said.

But Reimer said his department is feeling “more positive than we’ve been in nine months,” as classrooms begin to reopen and people go back to their workplaces.

For the most part people are making healthy decisions, and even flu numbers are down because of people’s safe practices, he said.